A year has passed since FIFA announced that Australia and New Zealand had won the hosting rights of the 2023 Women's World Cup – the first to include 32 teams and could be partly described as a "developing" football federation. , Oceania.
The coronavirus pandemic has brought much of the sporting world to a standstill over the past year, but the 11 member federations that make up football's smallest confederation, the OFC, have quietly found themselves to capitalize on the boom in interest and investment from the Co. preparing. To host the Women's World Cup in two years' time.
The announcement of Emma Evans as the head of women's football at the OFC left some excited and relieved. Working as a development officer across the region, Evans knows better than the importance of tournaments in helping to develop the women's game throughout the Pacific.
"The impact the World Cup will have on our side of the world can be somewhere like France, where you've already got professional football, you've already got millions of people involved in this sport, Evans told ESPN.
“Whereas, if you focus purely on the impact that is going to happen here – not just on football but also on regions in Asia and the Pacific – it is huge. There is still a lot of development that needs to happen, and I think That when people here see how good women's football is on a global scale and how many followers it has, perceptions and culture will start to change.
"It certainly validates the work that we're doing. You feel trusted. FIFA knows football can thrive here, and this decision, that level of investment, proves it."
Over the past year, several women's leagues have introduced or improved their formats in several Pacific countries, including Tahiti, the Cook Islands, Fiji, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. Evans believes that part of the surge is due to FIFA's decision to expand the tournament to include more teams. With New Zealand automatically qualifying as co-hosts, the chances of another Oceania nation making their World Cup debut have never been higher.
Evans also noted that every country within the OFC now has "at least one women's football official ... which alone shows that there are now increasing resources devoted to the women's game. This is a big deal for our region." step."
"To be honest, it looks like it's almost got bigger in the islands than in New Zealand," Evans continued. "When I say that, New Zealand are now focused on delivering - both what they can with their national team and then delivering the event as well - while, for the rest of the Pacific, they are gone, 'We finally have a chance to get into the World Cup.'"
Evans' work with the OFC revolves around two key principles: increasing opportunities for women and girls to participate in sports; And providing the resources and structures to ensure women's football – and football more generally – can develop in a sustainable way.
“The more opportunities these girls and women have to play, obviously they are going to be better off in the long run. But it is the same for coaches and referees; now it is about making sure that the infrastructure around them Right," Evans said. "It's okay to step up the game and play more people, but if you don't have coaches and referees and administrators to bring it to life, it's never going to be sustainable."
Finding a place to play is an especially difficult task, given Oceania's geography. The combined land mass of the islands that make up the region is dwarfed by the several million square kilometers of the Pacific Ocean between them, providing even the most basic football tasks – traveling to training and sports, access to equipment, building farms, etc. Finding new land for - especially difficult.
"There are a lot of issues when it comes to geographic dispersion and the transport between those islands; the dispersion is almost as large as Europe," Evans said. "It may seem that this area covers all this space, but in reality on that one island, there may be only one field to play or an area of beach.
“Trying to encourage football in whatever venue you can find is a big deal. Making sure there are alternative formats to play – beach soccer or futsal or other small-sided sports – is important, but it That only takes you so far. But at some point, you need to transition to full-size pitches.
“Travel is another major issue. For some of these communities it can take up to two weeks to get to a certain island by boat. You can have an extremely talented player, but if it takes him four days to get a boat to the main city she is expected to play or train at the national camp that week, and then return for four days on the boat, may have missed two weeks of school. She may not have been in her best form. Traveling."
Geography will also play a role when it comes to promoting and broadcasting the tournament.
"There are issues with internet connections within the Pacific so there are talks about setting up a World Cup hub: where, within each country, there are certain places fans can go - whether it's a stadium or conference room - to watch. for the live match," Evans told ESPN.
"How do we make tournaments as accessible as possible when travel, internet, infrastructure and timing are easier than anywhere else in the world? You and I [in New Zealand] can wake up in the middle of the night, open our laptops and play a game. It's not that easy out there. It's going to be important to take the game to the masses.
Cultural norms and attitudes also make it difficult for women and girls to participate in football in the Pacific, where religion plays a major role in many communities and often deeply shapes the roles and responsibilities of men and women.
"In Australia and New Zealand, women's football is played on Sundays, but you can't play on Sundays in the islands because of religious considerations," Evans said. "It's not as easy as trying to convince them that it's okay, because in many of these countries the land and grounds belong to a particular community that won't let you play there.
“One coach told me that the biggest challenge he faced was giving families the same opportunities for their daughters as their sons. He would ask them to take their son to a tournament and they would say, ‘Great! Take him. Have a mouth to eat!' He can also make a career in it.
"But you talk to them about their daughter—same age, same talent, same status—and they lose an important cog in their house; their cook, their cleaner, the babysitter. It changes how the whole family is." Works. So it's hard to challenge those norms when something like this works for them at the moment."
However, Evans' hope is that hosting the tournament will normalize the participation of women and girls in the sport, and creating more opportunities in football will give them the knowledge, skills and avenues that not only benefit the individual but their families and their families. communities at large.
"We're now starting to see more girls going to school or university, which is really bringing educated women into sports and the field," Evans said. "For me, what's important is to create a safe environment and platform where they can engage in a very male-dominated sport and a male-dominated society."
This, for Evans, is the most important legacy the 2023 Women's World Cup will host: empowering women and girls from across regions to dream big and chase goals that were never on their horizon before.
"From an OFC perspective, [2023] is all about changing perceptions," Evans said. "It's a fairly general statement, but if we change perceptions about what women and girls are capable of doing when given the opportunity - whether players, coaches, referees, administrators, commentators - that will be the biggest thing about this World Cup." can do here.